Texas Executes Reginald Perkins for Strangling His Stepmother as DNA Ties Him to Two Older Fort Worth Killings
Perkins, a paroled Ohio sex offender, insisted to the end that he was innocent. He was never charged in the other deaths investigators linked to him.
Published
Texas executed Reginald Perkins, a paroled Ohio sex offender, on January 22, 2009, for strangling his stepmother. DNA had also tied him to two 1991 Fort Worth killings he was never charged with.
Perkins, 53, was pronounced dead at 6:24 p.m. in Huntsville, about eight minutes after receiving a lethal injection. Asked for a final statement, he said, "I already made my statement," referring to remarks he had given a prison official an hour earlier: "I did not kill my stepmom. I loved her. Texas is going to kill an innocent man." His stepmother, Gertie Mae Perkins, 64, disappeared from her Fort Worth home on December 4, 2000. Arrested that day, he directed his father and police to a parking garage, where her body was found in the trunk of her car. He had sold her wedding ring at a pawn shop for $150, and checks from the family trucking business had been cashed. A Tarrant County jury convicted him in March 2002 and took 30 minutes to decide he should die.
Perkins had pleaded guilty in Ohio to the 1980 rape and attempted rape of two 12-year-old girls and received a life sentence, and was later paroled. He was also suspected in stranglings in Cleveland but never tried. According to the Texas Attorney General's office, DNA evidence later connected him to the 1991 stranglings of Shirley Douglas, 44, and her aunt, Hattie Wilson, 79, in Fort Worth. "This day was a long time coming, but thank God for this day," Gertie Perkins's family said in a statement.
The Associated Press reported that Perkins was paroled from Ohio in 1988, while the Texas Attorney General's office said he was released on parole in 1990.
Sources
- Executed Offenders list, Texas Department of Criminal Justice
- Reginald Perkins #1141 (execution file incl. TDCJ record, Texas AG media advisory of 2009-01-15, AP report of 2009-01-23, Huntsville Item report of 2009-01-22), Clark County (Indiana) Prosecuting Attorney - clarkprosecutor.org
- Perkins v. Quarterman, No. 07-70010 (5th Cir. Nov. 15, 2007), U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit